Professor

About

  • Role:

    Faculty

  • Position:

    • Professor

  • Concentration:

    • Environmental
    • Macroeconomics
    • Ecological and Resource Economics
    • Economics of Climate Change

  • Department:

    • Economics

  • Education:

    • Ph.D. Economics, 2009, University of Wisconsin--Madison

  • Curriculum Vitae:

Biography

Dr. Iverson is an environmental macroeconomist who uses applied theory to study issues in the economics of climate change. His recent work studies the challenge of increasing global carbon abatement in the absence of broad multilateral cooperation. He proposes a tiered version of a climate club in which a coalition of lead countries use trade threats to induce partially matching abatement in other countries. He has a book contract with Cambridge University Press to explore the broader topic of what it will take to address climate change in a serious way. Other recent work argues that political resistance to carbon pricing, observed in a setting in which countries act unilaterally, says little about the policy viability of efficient instruments when policy is chosen within the context of a binding international agreement. A course Dr. Iverson organized on the Economics of COVID-19 was featured in The New Yorker,

Publications

T. Iverson, L. Karp, A. Peri (2022): "Optimal Social Distancing and the Economics of Uncertain Vaccine Arrival," Journal of Public Economic Theory, forthcoming.

T. Iverson and L. Karp (2021): "Carbon Taxes and Commitment with Non-Constant Time Preference," Review of Economic Studies, 88(2) 764-799.

Iverson, T., & Barbier, E. (2021). “National and Sub-National Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19,” Economies, 9(2), 69.

E. Barbier, J. Burgess, T. Iverson (2020): "Are Sub-National Agreements for Carbon Abatement Effective?" Energies, forthcoming.

S. Zahran, T. Iverson, S. McElmurry, and S. Weilar (2019): "Hidden Costs of Fire Non-Suppression in Detroit: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Devil's Night," Ecological Economics, 157, 266-277.

H. Cutler, J. Hess, T. Iverson, D. Manning (2018): "Uncertainty, Learning, and Local Opposition to Hydraulic Fracturing," Environmental and Resource Economics, forthcoming.

E. Barbier and T. Iverson (2018): “There are better ways to foster solar innovation and save jobs than Trump’s tariffs.” The Conversation, January 22, 2018. https://theconversation.com/there-are-better-ways- to-foster-solar-innovation-and-save-jobs-than-trumps-tariffs-90532

S. Zahran, T. Iverson, S. McElmurry, S. Weiler (2017): "The Effect of Leaded Aviation Gasoline on Blood Lead in Children," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics, 4(2), 575-610.

C. Hannum, H. Cutler, T. Iverson & D. Keyser (2017): "Estimating the implied cost of carbon in future scenarios using a CGE model: The Case of Colorado." Energy Policy, 102, 500-511.

E. Barbier and T. Iverson (2017): “Better ways to foster solar innovation and save jobs.” The Conversation, December 21, 2017. https://theconversation.com/better-ways-to-foster-solar-innovation- and-save-jobs-87481

T. Iverson, S. Denning, S. Zahran (2015): "When the Long Run Matters: The Joint Effect of Carbon Decay and Discounting,''
Climatic Change, 129: 57-72.

S. Zahran, T. Iverson, S. Weilar, T. Underwood (2014): "Evidence the Accuracy of Self-Reported Lead Emissions Data Improved: A Puzzle and Discussion,"
Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 49:235-257.

T. Iverson (2013): "Minimax Regret Discounting," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 66(3):598-608.

T. Iverson (2012): "Communicating Trade-offs Amid Controversial Science: Decision Support For Climate Policy," Ecological Economics 77: 74-90.

C. Keske, S. Evans, and T. Iverson (2012): "Total Cost Electricity Pricing," Electricity Journal 25(2): 7-15.

T. Iverson and C. Perrings (2011): "Precaution and Proportionality in the Management of Global Environmental Change," Global Environmental Change 22(1):161-177.

C. Bond and T. Iverson (2011): "Modeling Information in Environmental Decision Making," Western Economic Forum 10(2):33-49.

J. Liu, A. Rinzler, H. Dai, J. Hafner, K. Bradley, P. Boul, A. Lu, T. Iverson, K. Shelimov, C. Huffman, F. Rodriguez, Y. Shon, T. Randal, D. Colbert, R. Smalley (1998): "Fullerene Pipes," Science 280(5367):1253-1256.

Working Papers

Are We Putting the Carbon-Price Cart Ahead of the Global-Agreement Horse?  February 2025. SSRN No. 5137149.

Tiered Climate Clubs: Global Abatement Without Global Agreement.  December 2024.  SSRN No. 4849108.

Advancing Global Carbon Abatement with a Two-Tier Climate Club, July 2022. CESifo Working Paper No. 9831.

Protecting the vulnerable during a pandemic with uncertain vaccine arrival and reinfection, July 2020.  With L. Karp and A. Peri.  Working paper, SSRN #3648714.

National and Sub-National Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19, July 2020.  With E. Barbier. CESifo Working Paper No. 8452.

Burn Coal?  The Supply-Side Case for Carbon Capture and Storage, October 2019. Working paper.

Climate Policy and the Equilibrium Rate of Interest, June 2016. With Elisa Belifiori. Working paper.

Courses

  • Econ 741: Graduate Environmental Economics

    Syllabus

  • Econ 492: Capstone Seminar on the Economics of Climate Change

    Syllabus

  • Econ 101: The Economics of COVID

    Syllabus